Disney Book Review: The Disney Story

I have read my fair share of books regarding Disney history, but Aaron H. Goldberg’s The Disney Story: Chronicling The Man, The Mouse & The Parks is a book unlike any other I have read. Each chapter is broken down by decade, starting with the 1930s and making its way up to present time. Instead of being bogged down with tiny details the writing is straight to the point and easy to understand. The story does not focus on the nitty politics of running a major company, but instead chooses to highlight the main products, the parks and movies. As a Disney geek, I love getting into the history of the parks and stories we love today, especially when you learn what changes were made to get the story to become what we know and love today.

Within each chapter important dates are brought up to bring the reader through the decade. While sometimes the dates back track to an earlier time, the story comes through clearly, allowing the reader to get a full sense of what Walt and his predecessors went through in order to create the pop cultural phenomenon Disney is today. What makes reading this story unique though, is Goldberg’s use of primary sources, e.g. newspaper articles. Each chapter is littered with footnotes that direct the reader to the book’s website, thedisneystory.com. This website functions as the resource page for this book, and readers can go and view the actual documents Goldberg pulls from. This creates a fun, interactive way to not only read about Disney history, but see the history as well.

Depending on how much Disney trivia you know, this book may hold a plethora of new information for any Disney geek, due to the sources Goldberg pulls from. While I don’t want to spoil it for everyone, I will share a few fun facts I learned myself while reading through this book.

- When A Carousel of Progress premiered at the 1964 World Fair a news reporter sat on the stage with the animatronics, fooling the audience as to who was the real person and who was not.

- Dick Van Dyke didn’t think he’d be famous in Hollywood forever.

- When creating Disney Hong Kong, Disney called in a feng shui specialist to make sure the park how good energy flowing throughout the park.

- High School Musical (which I loathed when it came out) played a much bigger impact on Disney history than I ever though.

Goldberg’s simple and straightforward writing, combined with the excellent variety of outside sources that are easily accessible to readers, makes this book a great read for Disney fans. Whether you know all about the history of Disney or not, I am sure you will learn at least one new fact as you read through this book.

Magical Thought: Have you read this book before? Have you checked out thedisneystory.com? What are your thoughts?